From:
steve austin
Date: 2001-03-14 01:31:00 UTC
Subject: Re: [Ferret-Health-list] giving bottled water
I have a question. How many individuals and or shelters use
bottled water for their ferrets? And why? I have always given
mine bottled water. I now live in the country with a well that
has chlorine and salt for softening. How bad is this water if
I decided to give it to them?
sue
I use tap water- it is city water. The problem with bottled
water is that there are not any regulations on the water
being specially filtered, or from a spring,etc. I believe
well water is only tested if the owner requests it, the city
water is tested periodically and a report is sent out. I am
guessing that all of the stuff in our water is pretty safe, if
it is not causing birth defects, and bad effects on newborns,
I doubt it would harm a ferret. Just my guess though. .
As far as chlorine I guess it depends on the ppm, can you
smell it? I think it dissapates rather quickly when left out
to the air- but I think I can leave a bucket of water out for
a day and it is safe for my fish. There are simple tests for
the chlorine and water hardness,salinity, etc available in
places that sell fish supplies- if you wanted to gather exact
numbers and see if your water is much different from the
bottled water. Just a fun project for that late night insomnia
attack.
I think that there are cases of giardia from contaminated well
water, and I am sure this is a rare case. To completely avoid
this you could boil the water for 10 minutes, let cool and
bottle your own. Although, bottled water is rather cheap
Patty